Our feelings on the man are well known. We love him. And there's a certain amused bewilderment we take in watching Andrew W. K. during his long, strange metamorphosis from hip-kicking arena rocker to perplexing motivational speaker, nutritionist, and Fox News correspondent.

But underpinning all of our belief in this dynamo is one fact: the music has remained urgently good. Even his domestically ignored Japan Covers from 2008 (a collection of W.K. covering the top selling Japanese cell phone ring tones) crackled with posi vibes.

But the idea of W.K. riffing at a piano for a couple hours and mashign the thing into an album? Our faith doesn't tremble, but we're cocking our eyebrow just a touch. We've seen the YouTube videos of W.K. performing at the Iivory 88. Liberace he ain't.

Still, Andrew W. K. has made an entire career out of executing the unlikely. In fact, the unlikely seems to be his natural habitat. After all, in 1998, who would have guess that a noise musician from Ann Arbor would become the very face of rock and roll during the early 2000s? We're not revisionist enough to riase our hands.

That said, we'll bate our breath-- the album comes out September 7. Keep your ears and eyes on Gimme Noise for a full review.